


Paint Me in All My Mistakes

by DoubleL27



Series: Beyond Control [1]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Episode: s04e07 The Barbecue, Multi, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-10 14:19:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20853173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleL27/pseuds/DoubleL27
Summary: Patrick tries to figure out what to do after the secrets he’s been keeping blow up in his face at the Rose barbecue.





	Paint Me in All My Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a tweaked lyric from “The World Was Wide Enough” from Hamilton. 
> 
> This fic was prompted by conversations with Likerealpeopledo about Patrick needing to not being seen, being invisible, which brought me back to this moment where he is seen as not perfect. 
> 
> And I promised DelilahMcMuffin I would torture Patrick this time. So...you’re welcome. 
> 
> Picks up Patrick’s POV after he leaves David’s room in The Barbecue.

Patrick stumbled out of David’s room, not wanting to walk back to the picnic table with David’s family and Rachel.However, he had promised David food and he needed to talk to Rachel. Clearly, he had not been clear enough in his messages to Rachel that he did not want to get back together, that he had no intention of moving home, that he thought this was really for the best. Patrick had at least thought the message that had read, ‘I already told you the answer to that question Rachel, we are done’ and then refusing to respond afterward would have been quite clear. 

He stopped before anyone was in his line of vision and took three deep, if shaky, breaths.This was not how he had planned to celebrate four months of the best relationship he had ever had. The last thing Patrick wanted was to see the disappointment in the eyes of Stevie and David’s parents. Especially not after the excellent talk he had had with Mrs. Rose this morning. 

He had already let David down once today; Patrick knew he couldn’t do it again. 

Patrick’s skin crawled as he turned the corner and felt all eyes on him, judging him and all his mistakes.He stayed staring at the ground, striding for the table. 

“Patrick, I don’t—“

Patrick couldn’t even look at Rachel, but just held a hand up. He was afraid if he made eye contact with anyone he would cry right here and he couldn’t break here. “Rachel, I know you don’t. I just—“ He paused at the crack that ran through his voice.“Mmm. David needs dinner, so I am just going to fill him a plate.”

“Patrick, we can—“ Stevie started. 

He shook his head. One breath in, one breath out. He was going to need to look up to make it to the table without bumping into anything.Patrick tried to swallow the lump that had lodged in his throat.It wouldn’t go away. 

“David asked me to do this,” Patrick managed to say without entirely losing it. “So I am just—I am just going to-to put together a plate and bring it back to him.Rachel, if you wouldn’t mind waiting, we can talk when I am done.”

With that, he picked up David’s plate with the slider he had specifically finished for his boyfriend.The table was awfully blurry as he added more sliders and a scoop of every side onto the plate.Everyone was pretending not to look at him as he set everything up. Somehow it was worse than the outright staring. 

Quickly, Patrick grabbed silverware, and a napkin and headed back to David’s room.He knocked carefully with the hand with the silverware.A small part of him hoped that David would just let him stay and talk this out. 

Instead, David opened the door a crack and reached for the plate, like the Once-ler, and his hand with the plate disappeared.Patrick stared at the door, which closed with a snick, still holding the silverware and napkin clutched in one hand.He didn’t want to walk away from this door and David. Patrick had just found the puzzle pieces that had been lost most of his life. He didn’t want to leave them behind with David in this room. 

The door opened again and David’s face was staring back at him, eyes rimmed with red. “I don’t have-“

Patrick just held up his hand with the fist full of utensils. David’s lips formed a perfect o and Patrick wished he had the right to move in and kiss him. He didn’t though.He had gone along when David didn’t want to talk about their pasts and he had foolishly hoped his would never catch up to him. Now they were standing in the car wreck he had driven away from months ago. 

“Thanks,” David whispered, his hand reaching out for the plastic silverware. 

“No problem.” Patrick answered, releasing everything so nothing fell.“I know...” Patrick heard his voice crack and closed his eyes before continuing. “I know you need time but I will—“ David just stared at him blankly and Patrick ended up just whispering, “When you’re ready.”

“Mmm. I don’t want the food to get cold so I’m just gonna—“ David’s voice faded away as he close the door and left Patrick there.

Well, that was, not the worst. It was the only positive thought that Patrick could come up with. David hadn’t actually broken up with him. David hadn’t said that he didn’t want to be business partners any longer. That, Patrick worried, was a fear he was going to need to suppress. 

He wanted to go home and crawl into bed and not come out, preferably forever. However, there was still the problem of Rachel. 

Dragging himself back around the corner she was still there, standing awkwardly to the side.She didn’t belong here, and it showed. 

Before he could open his mouth, Stevie was beside them.Her hand came to rest on his arm and Patrick realized how much more he stood to lose than just David. She gave him a sad smile. “If you two want some privacy, you can use the lobby. Just, lock the door behind you.”

“Thanks, Stevie.”It was a measure of kindness he hadn’t quite expected from David’s best friend, no matter how much she had liked him before all this. He finally looked fully at Rachel, whose brown eyes were still filled with pain and confusion. “Come on,” he said, shortly, and turned on his heel.

As upset as he was, the manners his mom had instilled in him from childhood overrode any other instinct and he held the door to the office open and gestured for Rachel to enter before him. Once she had stepped through, he used locking the door as a moment to try and gather himself together.One breath in, one breath out. 

He turned around to find Rachel staring at him, her right hand worrying her left elbow. “Patrick, what is going on here?”

The anger that had been building in him had overtaken the sadness.It rushed out of him before he could stop it. “I don’t know, Rachel.Was I not clear?Did I miss something in our texting?” All the texts from the last few months were replaying in his head and he couldn’t see where he had gone wrong. “I thought I told you that I didn’t want the get back together. I told you I knew I made the right decision when I called off our engagement. I told you not to come here. I told you we were done and stopped responding. So, what is happening? You tell me.”

Tears began to fall from her eyes and all the anger seeped from his body. “I was going to go home. I just thought—this is what always happens. You leave, I win you back.I just always thought—“

Patrick gave an incredulous laugh. Why would that even sound appealing to her anymore? When she said it out loud like that, Patrick was appalled. He rubbed his hands over his face and sat on the old, office couch. Patrick was suddenly so incredibly tired. 

“Rachel, don’t you think sometime in the last fifteen years, we would have already figured it out if we were meant to be together?”

“You left this time. Just disappeared, with barely a word to anyone.Just said you needed a change. Everyone was worried, especially your parents.” She stopped and took a shaky breath of her own. “Patrick, you have been my best friend for twenty years and you just left.I didn’t...I still don’t understand.”

That was the heart of the problem. Best friends since the first day of middle school, each other’s first kiss, dating, prom, graduation.They had a lifetime of memories together by the time they had been old enough to think themselves grown up. He’d broken up with her when he had left for university.They had gotten back together sophomore year. And so the pattern had continued for the next ten years. It had never been fair, to either of them. 

He looked up at her bleakly.Rachel had been safe, known, comforting. “I know, Rach, and that’s why I always tried so hard. I do love you.”

“I love you, too,” Rachel responded, smiling at him. She reached a hand out towards him. 

“No, Rachel, you’re not—“ _Mmm_, this sucked. “I love you but I am not in love with you. I never really was.” This was essentially breaking her heart all over again and it hurt to do it, as it had all the times before.Patrick had never been comfortable when she was hurt. He could see the confusion in her brown eyes as she just stared at him.“Everyone talked about what love felt like but I always just thought it was made up for TV and books, the feelings everyone talked about. I didn’t know—“ The feelings of wonder and connection that had come almost instantly knowing David, swamped him. 

“Patrick?”

“I’m...I have been...God!” Patrick whispered, covering his face, again. 

Why was this so hard?It shouldn’t be this hard. David was-David was still his boyfriend, at least in Patrick’s mind. The whole world had gone from black and white to color when he had met David and it had made his life better.Why was that so hard to say?

Patrick made himself look Rachel in the eye as he said, “David is my boyfriend.” He didn’t put it in the past tense.Wouldn’t. Couldn’t. “I’ve been seeing him for a few months now.Four months, actually, today.”

The amount of wrong turns that had lead to this moment: the giant cookie, talking with Mrs. Rose, not telling David about Rachel, not telling Rachel about David. He only really regretted the last two. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” David’s longest relationship, apparently. Patrick wanted a longer milestone than four months for them.“And we hadn’t really gotten around to our pasts.He knew I’d never—that he was the first guy I had been with, and he’s been with like, a ton of people, but we never really talked specifics so, you-you were a bit of a shock.”

To everyone really, but especially to himself. 

Perhaps leaving home had been running away. Away from the expectations and the life that almost fit but wasn’t really enough. Patrick liked to think instead that he had been running to something.He’d been running to David and their business and a life that felt right. 

“So, are you...”

“Gay?” Patrick asked, finishing the question for her. “Yeah. I...um...” Patrick swallowed and tried to calm down his heartbeat.“I think so.”

Patrick just stared at her. It was the first time in all these months he had actually called himself gay out loud to another person that wasn’t David. Here in Schitt’s Creek he was just David’s partner/boyfriend and no one really asked questions. Just he and David talking about labels and wine, as was his favorite analogy. Anyone from home had gotten very surface texts from him, nothing of the deep, meaningful changes he had made to himself since then. 

Rachel had certainly not been the first person he had meant to tell that to out loud. His parents should probably know first as well as friends, but Patrick couldn’t see sharing his sexuality in a text or on social media. It was something to do in person and he wasn’t ready to go back.

Rachel sat tentatively on the edge of the couch, like a bird on a ledge. “So, you said he was the first guy but, did you ever, like, know before?”

Patrick shook his head, which made him feel stupid.Who got to thirty and had never really realized they weren’t attracted to women? Not even had a real inkling. Not until David had exploded into his life in technicolor, and waving hands and endearing, rambling voicemails. “I knew something wasn’t right. Back home, it just felt like my skin was too tight and like I didn’t belong.” He still wasn’t sure how to explain it to her, all these months later, even with more answers, Patrick still wasn’t sure how to put it into words. “It was like, I was walking through the world trying to see colors everyone else could see. I kept trying to figure out if this was all the world would ever be for me and I couldn’t keep living like that.”

“So I had to go, because I needed to break the pattern. Rachel, I knew if I had stayed we would have gotten married eventually and stared a family and I would have resented you and you, me. So, then I came here and I met David and I...”

How could he explain in words what David was to him?How everything had suddenly been turned right-side up and he’d never known that had been entirely upside-down. 

“You’re in love with him.”

“Yes.”_Madly_. 

“I see,” Rachel said, voice small. 

Patrick slid his glance over to her. She looked pale and drawn and like she was collapsing in on herself. Patrick wanted to gather her close and comfort her, but also didn’t want to send any more confusing signals. He did love her. She had been his best friend. If Rachel hadn’t meant so much to him he never would have tortured them both like this for so long. 

“Thing is, Rach,” Patrick began, the tears burning his eyes, “You deserve this. You deserve to be loved so deeply and completely, and I never could have given that to you. You deserve better than us.”

“I thought I had been.”

The knife twisted deeper in his chest. “I know.”Hadn’t he wondered so many times why he couldn’t make things work out with someone as wonderful as Rachel. They had shared interests in sports and music, had enjoyed going out to a bar, having a game night or staying in for a Friday wine and cheese night.Everyone had always told him how lucky he had been to have a girl like Rachel. 

Patrick stared at his hands, which had fisted together again and rested in the space between his knees.

“It feels different. It really does.”

Silence stretched between them and it still felt heavy like it had those last months before he had gathered his courage and strength to end it. 

“Alex told me I was crazy to come.She said, I had wasted enough years of my life trying to fit us into this life I had dreamed up for us. I wanted to prove her wrong.”

Patrick found it somewhere in himself to manage a small smile. “You never did like being wrong.”

“Excuse me, Patrick Brewer, who am I talking to?”

Patrick found himself blushing as he let out a snort. “Yeah. I don’t particularly like being wrong either.”

“Fifteen years of us trying not to be wrong”

“I don’t regret our relationship, Rachel. I just—“

“No, it makes sense,” Rachel said, looking at him with clearer eyes. “We were engaged for three years and barely had a venue and a date.It always felt like eventually it would all fall into place.”

Eventually, Patrick had seen the pieces fall into place.They just weren’t to the puzzle Rachel wanted to complete. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Patrick, for what?” Rachel asked, looking at him like he was crazy.

His mouth was tight as tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. “For letting it go on this long.For not realizing what was wrong sooner. For not being who you need.”

“Patrick, you were always the one trying to give us space to figure it out and I couldn’t let us-you go.I am sorry. I should have listened rather than just forged ahead thinking I knew best.”

Patrick just nodded his head.He was grateful for the apology.If only it hadn’t taken this long for her to come to it. If only...if only.

“I’m sorry if I messed things up between you and David.”

“You didn’t—I mean you being here did, but it’s really that I didn’t tell him about you or your texts.” Blaming Rachel would be easy, comforting even, but not the truth. He couldn’t have ever controlled Rachel, but he could have controlled himself. “I should have, but I knew it would upset him and I didn’t want to to rock the boat.He’s like a feral cat, sometimes. You have to do a lot of coaxing to get him to come out, but he’s dying for affection.We basically just scared him back into hiding.”

“Hey, if anyone can get him back out, it’s you,” Rachel said, reaching out and punching him on the shoulder softly, like she had since they were kids 

“Thank you.”

“I’m going to leave in the morning but if you need anything, as a friend, don’t be afraid to reach out. Please.”

“Yeah,” Patrick agreed softly. What he didn’t say was that it really all depended, on David and their relationship and whether it seemed like ever talking to Rachel again was a good idea ever again. He couldn’t imagine talking to her again if he and David...it was really going to depend. 

They both stood, and Patrick wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. Rachel May have been leaving but Patrick was not anywhere close to bring done with the fallout. He looked at Rachel who just stared back at him. 

“Would a hug be entirely inappropriate?”

Patrick’s first instinct was to say no. But another part, the one that missed the person who he had let see the most of himself, his sounding board for ideas: his best friend, instead had him say, “What can it hurt?”

Rachel stepped into the hug, and Patrick was instantly surprised by how tiny she was. David’s hugs were big and warm and always lasted a beat longer than most people were comfortable with 

“Oh god!” Stevie’s voice had then springing apart. “Sorry!My bad! It was just so quiet and there’s only so long I could stand at the door with the Roses’ listening to David...”

Stevie trailed off and the pit in Patrick’s stomach became an abyss. He wanted her to finish the statement. His brain filled in too many possible ends to that sentence, none of them good. One breath in. One breath out. 

“I was leaving. You’re not interrupting anything.”Rachel turned and touched Patrick’s shoulder and he tried not to flinch. “I’m sorry, Patrick, really. I do want you to be happy.”

“Thanks,” he said to her over the lump in his throat.Rachel was almost out the door when he said, “Rach.”Rachel paused and looked back at him over her shoulder. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

She gave him a small smile. “It’s not my news to tell.Good luck.”

The door closed behind her with a click and Patrick was still nodding at it like an idiot. He forced himself to stop and just stood there. Patrick knew he had to do something but his whole body felt frozen. 

Stevie rocked back on her heels and gave him some duck lips before blowing out a breath. “So, a fiancée, huh?”

“Ex-fiancée,” Patrick corrected, jamming his hands deep in his pockets, clenching them into fists. “I ended it before I even came here. Before I even knew David was—“ A possibility, the answer, the last puzzle piece. Patrick shook his head and said with tight lips, “You know what, Stevie, I don’t have to explain myself to someone who hid a supposedly-ex mutual boyfriend from David for months.”

Stevie pursed her lips so hard, she ended up sucking them through her teeth. “Point taken. He just...” Stevie sucked her lips in through her teeth again. “I’m surprised you didn’t tell him. You seem like a pretty honest guy.”

Patrick shrugged without taking his hands out of his pockets. “We didn’t talk about it. After finding out about Jake, David explainer about that situation and you, but we agreed not to really discuss our past relationships, just to focus on now.”Another helpless laugh escaped as he said, “I didn’t even know until he came in to snark at me about the cookie that this is his longest relationship.”

Everything had seemed so good this morning.As much as David complained about the gifts, he loved them. Rachel had already texted him ten times that morning and it should have been a huge red flag. Patrick had been high on David and their relationship and hadn’t been able to see anything else. 

“So, you, like, really didn’t talk about these things?”

“No. And I agreed because I didn’t want to talk about Rachel and the time I had wasted.I also didn’t want to hear about all the people David had been with.” Patrick fiddled with the thread at the bottom of his pocket as he kept thinking aloud. “I should have told him when Rachel was texting me but he gets so worried, talking about tempting fate and...”

Instead, Patrick had actually tempted fate by pretending like he could actually control the situation. He had been so confident he had a handle on both Rachel and David. 

“He’s a slight over-reactor,” Stevie supplied. 

David could be, but Patrick wasn’t going to be let off the hook that easily.He couldn’t say how he would have reacted if one of David’s exes had shown up out of nowhere and finding out that they had been texting.“But I screwed this one up.Yes, he would have been upset if I told him, but this was worse. I thought I could control everything.”

Stevie shrugged at him before going around the back to get her bag. “You’ll figure it out. David’s past is littered with assholes and users, and even today considered, don’t seem to be either of those things.For what it’s worth, I still like you.”

“Thanks.Is he...” Patrick had thought he was calm but thoughts of David made his voice crack again. One breath in. One breath out. “You said you and the Roses were listening to him...”

“Oh,” Stevie blew out a breath and waved her hand to dismiss the worry that was not going to go anywhere until he saw David again.“He’s eating and watching various sappy television. Couldn’t hear much over the TV.”

“I’m gonna—I’m gonna go.Keep an eye on him for me.” Patrick stopped, realizing he had no right to ask Stevie to do anything.“I mean, I know you will because you’re his friend. I don’t want you to tell me anything.I just want...”

All Patrick wanted was for David to be ok. Well, not all, but what he wanted most. All involved Patrick currently cuddled up in bed with David and for this whole mess not to have happened. 

Stevie just hitched her messenger bag up higher and gave him a small smile. “I’ve got him. You go figure out how you’re going to get him to talk to you.” 

Like it was that easy. 

“Yeah.”

Patrick stepped out of the motel office and into what was, surprisingly, still the light of day. Patrick felt like it should have been black and gloomy already, but summer nights were short, and the only real sign that it was getting late were the long shadows cast onto the ground like distorted mirrors of the real things. 

Patrick headed for his car and couldn’t help but be brought back to four months ago and David kissing him right here in the parking lot. 

Patrick climbed into his car, buckled his seatbelt, and looked at the empty space where David belonged. A sob rose up in his chest and escaped though his chapped lips. Patrick bit his fist and focused on breathing. He was not going to be caught out here, sobbing like a baby, by the Roses or David.Certainly not when it was all his own fault.

One breath in. One breath out. Patrick blinked until his eyes were clear of tears and then finally removed the fist from between his teeth. He barely paid attention to thered crescents that had formed there as he shifted to get the keys from his pocket and start the ignition in his car. 

Patrick took another look at David’s window where the TV light glowed blue and pulsed. He couldn’t bare to think of it as the last, as he shifted into gear and backed out of his space. He just needed to figure out how to get back in the door. 

If nothing else, Patrick Brewer did know how to go after what he wanted.All he wanted right now was David back in his life. 


End file.
